SXSW 2013: All Grohl, all the time (kind of)

AUSTIN, Texas ' The likes of Prince, Justin Timberlake, Green Day and others are on their way, but Thursday, March 14, at South By Southwest Music + Media Conference belonged to Dave Grohl.

The Foo Fighters leader and former Nirvana member, who screened his documentary "Sound City: Real to Reel' on Wednesday, March 13, in Austin, was this year's SXSW keynote speaker and delivered a 45-minute talk about his career and the independent spirit he's maintained, encouraging those in attendance to do the same thing. "The musician comes first' was the mantra in his carefully prepared remarks ' his father was a political speechwriter and his mother a writing teacher ' and he peppered the talk with specific remembrances about being turned on to music by the Edgar Winter Group's "Frankenstein' and learning to become an adolescent one-man band ' even demonstrating his primitive attempts at multi-track recording before the SXSW audience with an acoustic guitar and two old cassette recorders.

Grohl also offered specific remembrances about discovering punk rock, living in California's Laurel Canyon with a house full of female mud wrestlers ("That's a whole other keynote speech,' he quipped), the rise and fall of Nirvana and the beginnings of Foo Fighters from its ashes ' with a slap at "The Voice' thrown in for good measure.

Modest and self-effacing, Grohl's ultimate message to the aspiring musicians in the room was that, "There is no right or wrong ' there is only your voice.'

"Your voice screaming through an old Neve 8028 recording console, your voice singing through a laptop, your voice echoing from a street corner ' it doesn't matter. What matters most is that it's YOUR voice. Cherish it. Respect it. Nurture it. Challenge it. Respect it. Stretch it and scream until it's ... gone. Who knows how long it will last. It's there if you want it.'

Advertisement

On Thursday night, meanwhile, Grohl and his all-star Sound City Players ' put together to promote the documentary and its companion album ' did their talking on stage with a nearly three and a half-hour marathon that Grohl said would be the last show for the ad hoc group, which he called group's shows. But because of that he promised that the toupe would make the night "extra long and extra special,' and it certainly lived up to that declaration.

Besides original material created for the "Sound City' album, the Players tore through hit parades by Stevie Nicks, Rick Springfield and John Fogerty and a set of Cheap Trick songs played by guitarist Rick Nielsen and sung mostly by Slipknot/Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor, with Grohl's Nirvana mates Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear and Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins singing "I Want You to Want Me.'

Rage Against the Machine's Brad Wilk played drums behind Master of Reality's Chris Goss, while Fear's Lee Ving had the entire crowd singing the group's nihilistic anthem "I Don't Care About You.' Other highlights included a knockout treatment of Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman,' a charged version of Cheap Trick's "Surrender' and Fogerty's entire set of mostly Creedence Clearwater Revival hits, finishing the night with a near-metallic "Fortunate Son.'

The show had a last-night-of-summer camp feel to it: slightly bittersweet, but also celebratory. Grohl and his cohorts couldn't praise each other highly enough ' though Grohl pointedly burped into the microphone when Goss referred to him as "a genius' and "a national treasure. Grohl also declared a desire to "be Rick Springfield,' who was clearly basking in the cool of being associated with such august and hip company.

Despite declarations to the contrary, however, Grohl did hold out some hope for the Players to play again ' though it may not be for another 11 months or so. "We'll play the Oscar party,' he said with a laugh at a "Sound City' screening on Wednesday, March 13. Here's hoping it's sooner than that.